Defining Masks
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: There is a fake Contractor targetting black cats. It's not a case that would usually wind up in Hei's hands. But it's appropriate. Particularly with dreams of his mask shattering night after night. And conversations about masks and stars and life.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **Written for the 100 Prompts, 100 MCs Challenge, #31 – discerning.

* * *

**Defining Masks  
Chapter 1**

The gentle patter of rain hid nothing of the shadow cutting through the beams the street-lights offered. It was the clouds and the otherwise empty streets that did that, the overcast Thursday afternoon a better coat than the bullet-proof black cloth stitched to fit his frame. The parcel in his arms thought otherwise: the black cat croaked stiffly, its voice barely audible above the quiet patters of rain and even quieter footsteps on asphalt.

Slivers of rain ran down his plastic mask, its weight and chill reaching to the taut skin underneath. He didn't twitch to them; he'd expected the drizzle after all, he'd prepared for it.

He left the streetlights and the drizzle and slipped into the gap between tall grey buildings, coat-tail flashing with his shadow behind him. He ran lightly, the rising bricks barely touched by his coat and not at all by skin. Light from the street seeped in from both sides, blocked only by his solid frame as he slowed.

When he emerged from the alley a few minutes later, it was lighter, without his parcel or mask, and coat turned inside out so the bottle green interior made him look a young student walking home after a late night job and searching only for sleep.

**.**

His mask was cracked, something that wasn't impossible, but on the whole uncommon and disliked. It was a barrier after all, a barrier between his personas as the Kuro no Shinigami, and as the almost innocent Li Shungsheng. But that wasn't strictly true, because the Syndicate agent Hei always wore the mask in the peak of a job, but rarely in its ebb or flow.

It was the mask he'd started wearing before his sister died, something done not out of necessity but out of want. A rarity for a Contractor, but to him, it was just another one of the many things that distinguished him from other, true, Contractors.

But his mask had cracked. He could feel the sharp ceramic cracks scratching his left cheek, even if he had felt no blow to his face nor had he seen any projectile coming his way.

He lifted a gloved hand to feel the crack, before drawing back in surprise as the mask shattered like a clay pot smashed into the ground. The pieces, all jagged but none alike in size or shape, fell at his feet, some scraping his boots and others marring the carpet of soft sand beneath him.

His fist clutched the single piece he'd caught on reflex, the tightly woven cloth of his glove preventing it from drawing blood. Still, the sharp edges digging into his skin was enough to make even a seasoned soldier wince – much less a Contractor who seemed incapable of letting go of human attachments.

He looked up, his face reflected in the shadows: eyes wide and afraid. Like a child, though he was an adult by age. Like an innocent daffodil tossed into the breeze, unmarred with flecks of dirt and grime and blood. Like ice-cream stained lips, sparking eyes dulled with shock and terror – except he was not like that, and the image reflected in shadow was nothing but a phantom who dared to tease.

He punched the air with the fist that held the jagged remains of his mask, and the shadows curled around his hand, reaching through and chilling the bone. Someone laughed in the darkness, a shrill echoing laugh, and he immediately went rigid, eyes taut and listening, listening for the voice who cackled so as his eyes started vacantly ahead.

His hold on the jagged ceramic piece loosened, and it shot suddenly out of his hand, ripping his glove. The other pieces rose as well, fighting each other in the darkness with clicks and clangs, putting itself together like an ill-kept jigsaw puzzle until his mask stared back at him, replacing the shadow he'd failed to shatter – except the thin red smile of his mask had become more curved, more mocking instead of meaningless marks etched to give a face its form.

The smirk stretched even wider, and Hei curled his fist and threw it forth in order to shatter it once more…except he hit nothing but air, and his arm trembled as he opened his eyes and found himself lying, soaked in sweat, in his bed.

Mao yawned and uncurled from under his windowsill, and Hei slowly lowered his arm. 'You've had an energetic start to the day,' he noted, taking in the soaked singlet and tensed muscles. 'You do know Contractors don't dream.'

'Our subconscious minds are more useful than foolhardy dreams,' Hei responded, sitting up feeling the warm apartment air dry his skin. 'I would much rather have dreams.' He tossed the covers off his already exposed legs and headed to the bathroom, ignoring the slippers waiting for him at the foot of the bed.

Mao sniffed, before licking the fur on his upper arm. 'As unconventional as always,' he said, before giving himself a little shake. 'Keeps things interesting, I must say.'

Getting no response, he continued grooming himself as Hei did the human equivalent, away from prying eyes. The methodical routines saw no change to them: he licked the fur of his right arm first, then his left, then slowly extended to the rest of his body. By the time he'd won over his tail's morning frizz, Hei had emerged from the bathroom with hair damp and flat across his scalp, and dressed in a white shirt and jeans and his trademark – or Li Shungsheng's trademark, rather – green jacket.

Mao raised an eyebrow. 'I hope I'll at least get breakfast.'

He suspected Hei had rolled his eyes at the comment as he disappeared into the kitchen, but it was impossible to tell and even more impossible to get Hei to confess.

'I'm not sure I like this job of yours very much,' Mao continued. 'Waking up at seven in the morning every day.'

'Cats should take advantage of the sunlight,' Hei responded, the sound of a knife chopping dancing with the sizzling of something frying and his almost-monotonous voice. It was something that came with ease now, almost unintentional, though for too long he'd been scolded for having too much emotion in it. 'Your fish is ready.'

'Oh, good.' The desire was palatable in Mao's voice, and anyone hearing him would have assumed a cat with a human voice over a human in a cat's form. He reared up on hind legs and accepted the plate offered to him, sinking his teeth into the warm fish and scraping around the bones.

By the time Hei had packed his alias a bento box and heaped his plate with rice and fried fish, Mao had polished off his own breakfast. 'Getting any closer to the copycat?' he asked, as Hei set about inhaling his own plateful of food.

'Your humour needs some work,' Hei replied, between mouthfuls of rice and fish. 'And perhaps.'

Mao snorted. "Perhaps" meant not much at all. 'Yin hasn't been having much luck either,' he remarked. 'Huang's on his last leg with the both of you.'

'Tell him I'm narrowing it down,' Hei said, shoving the last spoonful into his mouth and standing up. 'I'm off now.'

Mao saw himself out the door before Hei could look it.

**.**

Li Shungsheng was a liberal arts major who preferred to get some exercise in walking to the university as opposed to driving or taking the bus, or that was the persona he wore this time. It worked remarkably well with his usual cover story, as the papers forged to obtain him a student apartment, and later replicated for various odd jobs, all cited the same course and university as his reference. In essence, Li Shungsheng had been attending the university for the better part of a year, and in such a large and spread-out environment, it was very easy for a person who matched the image provided to the administration to slip in and take up the name.

It was convenient, particularly as the Syndicate had ordered him to attend campus and investigate. Three days had yielded nothing so far, and his foray into university life had yielded, so far, nothing of use. He'd found many an animal lover, but most of them of the female gender and none matching the form provided. It also didn't help matters that the target, this time, was no Contractor – the frigid bodies of cats left in alleys were done by electricity, no doubt, but not through a Contract. The Syndicate had been sure of that, meaning there had been no activity from any known star during the window of death.

It wasn't what a member of the Syndicate would usually be sent to investigate, or so one would think. Except the police had made a disturbing connection: the stiff corpse of black cats, the electricity, and most recently, the masks left at the scene, all extended to a priority target of Section 4: the Kuro no Shinigami.

Hei had been somewhat amused; since the police could not speak publicly about Contractors, they'd made him a serial murderer, tracing what cases they assumed he had a hand in, and missing quite a few in between. Because he had nothing to do with _those_ murders, and maybe the police knew it as well and were just using it as a convenient excuse to finally catch him.

Having the media on their side this time did give them an edge, but it didn't do them a lot of good while he had his alias safely veiled from them. Li Shungsheng could walk right past the police station and no-one would bat an eye, because no-one likened Li Shungsheng to the Kuro no Shinigami.

It made pretending he was just a normal human being like everybody else a whole lot easier.

He nodded and smiled and waved in turn – waved at the more enthusiastic greeters while still maintaining an air of shyness. Shyness was a good mask. A reason to avoid most of the social endeavours. A reason to avoid close companionships and society involvements. A reason he could use to fade into the background of the college roll – to appear to enough classes so that he was noticed, but not enough so that he was long remembered.

It was perfect for a Contractor who only used the college as a cover – like most of his part-time jobs. No-one questioned how he jumped between them because it was all based on timetabling and need for money and a whole array of other things – or where alarm bells were raised. This time, it was purely need for money. The alarm bells rang on the college campus. He kept his eyes peeled there.

Of course, his classmates realised nothing. To them, he was the same Li Shungshen they had attended class with for almost half a year. That shy and not very social but friendly guy when approached. That guy who had a cat and who liked animals in general.

That had been mostly because of Mao, but it was coming in even more use now. It was easier to have been an animal lover to become one. And it was less suspicious when he spun a story about his cat being ill while searching, always searching, for someone who fit the profile he'd received.

And, meanwhile, Yin was some place with water and searching too: searching for black cats, and searching for their killer.

**.**

People talked, and that made things simpler. People talked about the cats being found, electrocuted, in alley ways. People talked about the masks that had been found. People talked about masks and general and Li Shungsheng was very careful about the mask he wore. Not that ceramic one that belonged to the Kuro no Shinigami and his black coat, but the invisible one that defined the skin he now wore.

People talked, and he listened, commented and took note at all the appropriate places. It didn't look strange at all: two classmates talking before a lecture, two classmates talking over lunch, two classmates passing notes while the man in front rambled on about something nonsensical.

There was lots of talk about the murders, but little fact. He was wary to not give anything more. Wary to protect his other self. That mask.

The Kuro no Shinigami had always been an urban legend, but now it was spreading: beyond the Contractors, beyond the police force, and into the public eye.

'I wonder what he was in for before. To – you know – have a criminal record.'

'It's creepy. Of all the ways to kill, why electrocute?'

'Not to mention dangerous. They could make one mistake in this rainy season and turn up fried themselves.'

'Serves them right if they do. And that'll make the police's job a whole lot easier too.'

'Li-kun, you'd better keep a sharp eye on your cat. I heard he doesn't discriminated between wild, stray or pets.'

And Li Shungsheng would nod and make some comment of acceptance and gratitude and the conversation would pass over again.

And he would go back to listening, and searching – though not expecting – any new news.

That would be too clumsy of somebody so well hidden. Too…easy.

**.**

It started raining again that afternoon, and Shungshen Li hurried home on account of his sick cat, donned his coat and mask, and emerged the Kuro no Shinigami into the storm. Yin's spectre followed him, at home in the rain. Mao, the opposite, stayed at home.

And if anyone stopped by, it looked simply as though he'd slipped out to fetch more medication for the cat.

But the truth was more deceptive, and more brutal. He was hunting a killer. And this was more like the hunt. No playing the innocent persona. Just wearing a mask to protect it. And the rain poured off his waterproof jacket and waterproof mask, leaving his eyes dry and free to search.

Such weather was becoming common, and the murderer seemed to enjoy such weather. It would make him easier to catch in the act.

And a part of him wondered how the copycat would react to seeing the _real_ Kuro no Shinigami.

Mao had laughed when he'd said that. 'Pride becomes Contractors,' the black cat said.

'Remember the target this time,' Hei had responded. Mao was in just as much danger as other cats – but that didn't matter. There was plenty of wild-life for him to inhabit should one body become unavailable.

No, Hei was not worried about Mao at all. Nor was he worried about his reputation. Fear was fear, no matter who spread it. And fear was a cloak.

He looked like a shadow flitting through the sheets of rain, ears covered by the sound of pounding drops but eyes free, eyes straining to see through that veil. And he chased every like shadow: every shadow his height, every shadow the shape and statue of a cat.

And then he saw Yin's spectre coming back to find him and he knew they'd found something. Maybe too late.

Another shadow, as tall as him. But different. Inferior. He had some sort of mechanical device that spat sparks in the heavy rain. And his mask was cracked.

The masks were always broken by the cats.

He saw Yin's spectre reach out for the cat behind the man – or if he was the same as the others, he was a man – and then vanish. To tell Huang, perhaps. And the man would come with insults and cigarette smoke washed away by the rain and his gun and it would all be over.

But that was okay. This wasn't the stage. Part of the hunt. The information gathering.

It didn't matter that it was hard to make out anything specific in his features in this rain. It grew heavier, more frequent. It hadn't been raining much when it began. That cat survived.

The water conducted electricity. The cat was in a puddle. Twitching now. But its heart had probably already stopped. Soon, the tetanic contractions would stop as well. The cat would be stiff. Broken. Dead.

He had his orders. Search. Define. Do not act.

That cat would die.

It didn't matter whether he really did like cats or not. Contractors had no such attractions.

Then again, he wasn't a typical Contractor.

Still, he knew when it was important to wait, to sacrifice.

The Syndicate would not protect him from the police if he gave them proof. They would cast him aside as a loss.

He was still self-preserving.

And his mask was whole.

The curtain of rain hid them well. The coat was black. The sleeves were black too. Any movement there was obscured in the splash of black against the rain that looked almost white.

The Kuro no Shinigami was a man who could draw his blade in such a blanket, or even a more transparent one, without alerting his opponent.

Often, he could draw the first blood before he was noticed.

But this time that was impossible. Because the other had watched him approach.

Still, the knife came out, gleam hidden within the cloth of his coat. It waited. The shadow opposing him drew near.

He threw the knife.

It hit something and fell into a puddle of rain.

The man stepped closer. Dressed in black. Masked: with a broken mask.

The crack had grown bigger. He'd aimed for flesh, but if the mask fell off –

Hei stepped closer, to meet the copycat.

The mask did not fall.

The other's hand came off, mimicking the Hei from the dream who'd felt the cracks he wore on his face. Except the mask did not crumble underneath those fingertips. Except he wasn't grabbing for the shards that fell.

'It won't come off.'

It wasn't a loud voice by any means, nor was it defining. It was mechanical. More wires. More electronics.

Hei stared carefully through the rain to see if he could find the source. Another knife might take care of it, if his aim was true, if there was sufficient distraction of the other party –

'All masks come off.'

The laugh was mechanical as well: the laugh that sounded after his words, his return. 'Indeed, they do' There was a pause, and a mocking: 'Kuro no Shinigami.'

He stepped closer, and his arm made an obvious motion: as though to knock into He's face, or rather the mask he wore. He dropped back in response: dropped into a fighting stance and fingered another knife, just in case.

'You will take your mask off as well,' said the mechanical voice with another laugh, before he backed away.

Hei saw Yin's spectre following, so he let them go.

His apartment awaited. A sick cat that wasn't so sick, some food, and his futon begging, in the dark, to be made use of.

**.**

The mask was broken again. He wondered why. He wondered if it was because of that voice, those words. Those comments about masks: his mask, the other's mask…

A mask that looked less and less like his own. But whether that was his eyes changing or the circumstances – or even the rain becoming more of a barrier between sight and truth, he didn't know.

And, so long as the suspect was apprehended and dealt with, it didn't matter.

Though he wasn't too sure why. It wasn't pride, no matter how Mao might mock his lack of certain Contractor traits: his acceptance of certain human ones. Pride was not one of them, he thought. Pride had never been one of them. He hadn't had much to be proud about. Except Bai. Except protecting Bai. But that was all over now too.

And suddenly Bai was there, her soft hands fingering the edges of his mask, hooking under them.

'Come, big brother,' she said softly. 'I'll take your mask off for you.'

He froze. That voice was one he hadn't heard in so long – and last he'd heard it, it had been different, so different. She'd been trying to protect him, then. Trying to keep his involvement at a minimal. And before that was the Syndicate. The contract. All their changes.

Her voice hadn't sounded so sweet since the sky had changed. Had put on its mask.

She pulled off his mask, and suddenly she was a cat, claws scratching at the porcelain. He made a snatch for it, but the cat hissed and scratched at him again.

He grabbed the mask, but it broke into two in his hands. And his hand and face both stung. Both wore scratches from those claws.

The cat licked its claws, watching as Hei brought those two pieces of the mask together, as though they would meld and become one.

They wouldn't. They didn't. They just broke into more, smaller, pieces until he couldn't hold them anymore. Until it was like fine sand slipping through his fingers.

Somehow, the tiny grains snuck through his gloves and scratched at his hands.

And his face was bare and burning with the fresh wind, staring as the grains of sand rose, reconnected and was worn by that smirking shadow.

'Why..?' he began, feeling young and lost and confused. 'Who – who are you?'

The lips moved, but he heard no answer pass from them. There was a barrier in between. A barrier he couldn't identify and understand, and therefore a barrier he could not penetrate.


	2. Chapter 2

**Defining Masks  
Chapter 2**

'Contractors don't dream,' Mao repeated, and this time there was a hint of warning in his tone.

Hei, blurry eyed, frustrated and deniably upset, growled unintelligibly and sat up. It was still in the dark hours of night. His heavy curtains blocked out whatever light the moon and streetlights gave, so his apartment was lit only by the soft red glow of his alarm. It was the sort of scene that invited shadows.

He stood, stumbled, and reached blindly until he felt the light switch. False light flooded the room: a poor substitute for day, but though his mind begged for more sleep, his heart recoiled. Bai…Bai had been there. He could not face a dream with Bai in it again.

'Night is for sleep.' Mao was annoyed, though he stretched to wake himself. 'You'd better have some warm milk for me.'

Hei heated some up. He made coffee for himself: something he didn't usually drink. But he hadn't anything stronger, and he didn't feel like going out to get something.

But the coffee was hot and unsatisfactory and his face was warm as well. Perhaps the cool night air would refresh him. And something alcoholic.

'Bring me something back,' Mao called. He seemed more content with the milk and the soon to be empty apartment. 'And try to get something for Huang too.'

Hei snorted at that. No self-respecting bar was going to give him beer for a cat. And Huang… It would take a pretty large coincidence to find something useful for him at this random hour.

But he'd cracked plenty a case with such luck. Luck unbefitting for a Contractor, as he'd been told so many times before.

**.**

There was a festival. It surprised him; he hadn't realised any celebration had snuck up on him while he studied and worked. He was Li Shungsheng again. Dressed in his green jacket and blue jeans and just wandering along with the crowd he'd found.

They were selling many things. Like tickets – and he brought one just to see what else was there. Curiosity was the driving force: curiosity which was another trait unbecoming of his Contractor status. But he already knew and accepted he would never be a true Contractor like the rest, always in between. He knew he hadn't been born as one, but converted – when Bai had passed down her power to him.

He knew that his power was just another type of mask he wore.

They were selling those too. Masks. Everyone on the dance stage was wearing one. Sparkly, sequin things. Peacocks and butterflies and other regal patterns. Even many of those flitting through the crowds wore a mask. Most were in yutakas as well. But many, like him, were not. But even they wore masks.

He picked up one studded in red and black. A butterfly, he realised, after starting at it a bit. It didn't suit the clothes he was wearing though. He put it down and picked up a peacock one instead: green and blue. Someone else picked up the one he'd initially been drawn to. Someone who looked familiar. From school.

'Li-kun.' His greeting was clipped, but his smirk was more amused. He thrust the mask the other. 'You should pick the mask you're first attracted to.'

'It clashes with my clothes,' Li replied, handing over his money and receiving a paper bag in return. It would soon be out of the bag though. It was how he would blend in to the crowd. Feel them more.

Even when he wasn't actively on a mission he would feel its lull. Especially in times when it hung in the background, waiting for the next switch to be flipped.

But there was a different switch flickering now. A game of cordiality. Of conversation.

And cordiality required a name. He searched through his mind. He remembered.

'Shame.' Kurosawa Hideto. With hair dark brown instead of black as his surname suggested. 'It's a pretty mask.'

**.**

They drifted in the crowd. Kurosawa brought a mask of his own, blue as well but blue with yellow mingling. They put them on, and strolled like two classmates who'd met coincidentally and were now walking together without a destination in mind.

And, in fact, that was what they were doing. The sky was cloudy even under the blanket of night but it was not raining. Yet. So they walked. They exploreed. They talked. About what was being sold. About their classes. About the festival itself: its masks.

Hei kept his eyes peeled and his ears trained. In a place with so many masks, perhaps the replica of his own would also appear. Or perhaps there will be another hint. Of the doppelgangers. Of his dreams.

Perhaps the boy walking beside him will offer him a hint for his dreams. To Li Shungsheng who had those dreams.

'Contemporary literature is growing into the abstract world that art has long since dabbled on.' Kurosawa fixed his mask. It slipped; its string wasn't quite tight enough. Li, in comparison, had chosen one that fit him perfectly. But not the first that had caught his eye.

'We do a little less of the abstract,' Li replied. 'It is fascinating, but its unlimited interpretations make it difficult to find unity in a piece, I think.'

Kurosawa nodded. 'You're a liberal arts major, right?' At the confirming nod, he continued, 'To me, it's more a way of life than an aspiration. A religion of sorts. Something to cling to, to allow to shape oneself to fit a mould. Or a mask.' He grinned. 'Fitting topic for a festival such as this. Do you know what it's called?'

**.**

It did rain, eventually. Hei dragged himself home without the bottle he'd gone to get but with a mask in a soggy paper bag instead, and collapsed on his futon. He was awoken mere moments later by Mao.

Ten minutes later, he was back in the freezing rain, but this time as Hei. With his black bulletproof and rainproof coat and his white mask with black eyes peering in to the night. And he was following not his own feet on a whim but Yin's spectre, dancing amongst the strings of rain the sky dropped.

His body did not feel it but it assaulted his hair: flattened it, and made it wet and heavy. It assaulted his hair when it could touch nothing else. His face was masked. His hands were cloaked. His body was covered by the black coat and black pants and black shoes. And the sky was dark.

He wondered if he'd see a star aglow in that otherwise dull night. Or lightning flash amidst the rain that fell.

What he found instead was a cat. Black by the looks of it. Black on assumption. Next to a mask in three neat cracks. A mask like the one he wore, but far more brittle. And no-one vanishing into the rain, into the darkness, to chase. No-one at all.

But he could still smell something burnt in the air. The electricity. The dead cat.

The police would find it in the morning, he imagined.

**.**

Hei wondered about Kurosawa. His infernal luck as Huang called it often brought him into contact with his targets, and there was no reason why it could not be the same this time. He was the right height. The right build. He was not a cat lover by any means, but he had nothing against them either. Perhaps they'd been presumptuous in that regard. But no. The targeting towards cats must have a reason. And what background did that boy have. What connection.

That question could be asked to anyone. But he did not ask them aloud. He thought. He waited. He searched. And, as Li Shungsheng, he interacted.

Lunch was a nice, subtle, scene. Innocent conversation. Tagging along with other friends with small suggestions. It played out nicely. A lunch where they could talk, get to know each other better. Where he could feel the murky waters and where Kurosawa Hideto tried to feel more of Li Shungsheng as well.

Or was it Hei he was trying to feel? It was just instinct that told him, but his instinct was not oft wrong.

And the stage was not long in coming after he'd recognised that as well.

**.**

He still dreamt. The mask fell, made of porcelain. It cracked. It tried to knit itself together. It never worked; it only tore his skin apart trying it. Bai frequented his dreams still, and no other late night wandering was interrupted by a festival he hadn't known was there. Mao didn't mind; liquor in his milk was just as savoury as it had been when he had his body, and Hei could tease him about that and pretend he really was Li Shungsheng, that he really was a human…

Not that identities really mattered. Humans. Contractors. Dolls. They were all picked up by the world powers, the Syndicate being the largest and the most inescapable of them. The police were a part of it. The MIA were a part of it. That was why they never took action against him, no matter how they tried.

It was why he could wander about with his black coat and mask and escape, even with that masked division tasked with chasing him. They'd done an admirable job. Especially that woman. He saw her almost too many times – but just enough to not give anything away. She did not suspect. Not then. She might never suspect. Not while the both of them were so firmly within the umbrella of that Syndicate.

But that was just in a general sense. If she did catch him, he would be cast aside. Replaced. If he killed her in the case, she would be the one replaced. Humans. Dolls. Contractors. All of them were replaceable. All of them were worth only their species. Not themselves.

Humans still possessed an illusion of self. Contractors had forgone that.

He wondered which side of the spectrum he sat on. Many, too many, would say the human side. But he was not self-decrepitating.

**.**

Nothing had yet given. The cats were increasing in number. The dreams still plagued him except in an alcohol induced slumber and he was well aware of how it dragged him down. Coffee in the morning made him barely functional in class and Mao had been convinced to go back to Huang.

It became known that Li Shungsheng's cat may have become one of the latest victims of the cat murderer. Cats looked similar; it was, sometimes, hard to tell with charred bodies just who the pet belonged to. Guess work, mostly. Who'd gone missing. Who'd yet to return home.

It was a good front anyway. Li Shungsheng lived alone except for his cat. He'd already lost his family. He didn't have a lover. Nobody teased about that this time. It was fruit for light conversation, not in the aftermath of what might be a tragedy.

Meanwhile, Hei wondered as to the lull. Cats were being electrocuted left and right, yes, but where were the other Contractors? The dissidents? All the trouble he would usually be chasing. Things were so quiet, suddenly. Or were other fractions of the Syndicate keeping things quiet?

At this time, he felt like part of the masses, the humans who were ignorant of the power struggle and control going on around them, in the world. He was ignorant as well, chasing a cat killer wearing his face and his name. Something that could have been avoided if they'd pulled strings at the police department instead. Stopped them from making the connection.

**.**

He'd learnt to be more cautious when wandering around as the Kuro no Shinigami. He was too easy to mistake for the real thing. It didn't hinder him; it was ridicule, nothing more. Grieving pet owners threw harmless things at him that bounced off his bulletproof coat and landed in dreary puddles. Sometimes it stained and he had to do the laundry. Mostly it didn't. He was just an image to vent frustration on. Except his own frustration. He needed the copycat for that.

And he needed a break for his dreams. He still didn't know why his mask kept on crumbling in his dream. Why it tried to put itself back together, why it always tore at his skin to do it. He didn't know why so often Bai would appear and be the one to remove his mask. Even, sometimes, Amber – Amber who he hadn't thought much about since Bai disappeared – until they'd met again.

The dream was trying to tell him something. He knew it was. But he could not grasp its meaning.

**.**

He woke up with stinging and bloodied knuckles one night, until the alcohol washed away the sting. A different sort of alcohol: one that burned and then faded but had already done the damage in waking him. So he bandaged those knuckles of his and wore gloves – and then he decided, on a whim when spying his green and blue sequin mask, to wear it again and go back to the festival.

It wasn't there, of course, but he still wore the mask. It was a different mask, and underneath was a different persona. He was Li Shungsheng, wearing a butterfly mask that matches his clothes but that didn't suit him. He wondered if this mask would tell him more than the mask of the Kuro no Shinigami that just crumbled and remade itself and crumbled again.

He wondered, and he saw the stars. Those fake stars in the sky. Each representing a Contractor. Each representing a power, a life. But the humans didn't get stars. The Dolls didn't get stars. Why was it left only to the Contractors, he wondered. That special thing that was the sky –out of reach – was left only to the Contractors.

'Li-kun?' Surprise. Recognition.

Li Shungsheng turned around, surprised as well. He'd heard the footsteps, yes, but footsteps on a dark and lonely night led to nothing much. Unless someone who knew him happened to be walking by. Unless someone hailed him – or he hailed them.

It was another coincidental meeting, he noted. Kurosawa Hideto. Though he wasn't wearing a mask.

Li laughed. It was amusing, though why he'd even thought that was beyond him. The festival was over. Gone. He was the silly looking one still wearing the mask.

Then he saw a glimmer in Kurosawa's hands, and realised the other had worn his mask – and just taken it off at the sight of him.

Kurosawa saw his open curiosity, even behind the eye mask, and shrugged. 'It seemed like a nice night to wear a mask. And stargaze.'

**.**

Li Shungsheng had watched the stars with a lot of people. When he'd first come to Japan, he'd watch them every day and stragglers would come and watch with him. Chiaki. Anyone who happened to be passing by. Chiaki again. She'd been a Doll though. A Doll that had met her death protecting him.

Maybe she was the reason he paid such regard to Yin. Why he thought there was something deeper in her purple eyes, under her silver hair. Why he hadn't wanted to reprogram her, or shoot. Why he'd taken that scolding for Huang – a scolding, like most other scolding he received, which was just deserved.

After Bai, most people he tended to stargaze with were targets – or people he suspected of being targets. And, just as often, they were coincidental meetings. Coincidental findings.

Yin was watching them too. In the puddles from that evening's rain.

He hadn't brought his telescope, but they didn't need it. Both had jackets, and neither of them really cared about the grass stains. They lay back and just stared at the surprisingly clear sky, and at the stars that twinkled there.

'I hear the rain's moving on,' Kurosawa said, finally. 'I also hear all those stars represent lives – but the lives of certain people.'

'I haven't heard that,' said Li, though Hei, or the Kuro no Shinigami, had. But there was no reason why the liberal arts major student would know about that: would know about Contractors.

'It's supposed to be a secret.' Kurosawa sounded distant. Not sleepy, but…something else. 'Everyone who finds out is supposed to get their memories erased. I lied. I didn't want mine erased.'

'Erased?' Inside the mind of Li Shungsheng, the Kuro no Shinigami's thoughts raced. He knew the policy. He'd erased many a person's memories himself, but he didn't recall anyone getting away in those missions. Of course, he wasn't egoistical enough to think he was the only ones with missions, with privilege. He wasn't egotistical enough to think he had even any privilege at all.

But the mask, the doppelganger – they suggested he had been somehow involved.

'There were lots of people at the party,' Kurosawa continued. 'Lots of people. That Chinese girl's birthday party. She died that day, didn't she? And there was her bodyguard who'd killed her. And the guy in the mask who'd fought.' Hei did remember that. 'Two stars had been so bright that night. And I understood.'

He paused suddenly, and sat up. 'I don't know why I'm talking about this.'

Li put a small smile on his face. 'It's very interesting,' he said. Hei wanted to hear more. He _needed_ to hear more.

Well, he didn't need to from a Contractor's point of view. He didn't need to wait to act either. He could have created an opportunity instead of waited for it. But that wasn't the way of the Contractors. Needing an explanation wasn't the way of the Contractors either.

Kurosawa gave Li a curious glance. 'I look at the stars all the time,' Li explained, with a sad lint in his tone. 'Sometimes…I wonder if my sister is there. And my parents.'

The last bit is an afterthought. Though he had truly wondered many a time if Bai was the star that now represented him. BK-201: the star of the Kuro no Shinigami. Except he'd been the Kuro no Shinigami back when the star hadn't shown for him. Back when it been Bai's star. Her star alone.

'I see.' Kurosawa looked towards the stars again. 'I just wonder if we humans still count as being alive. If stars represent life, then why is it only Contractors have lives? And how are they born? Or made?'

Both Li's and Hei's face furrowed in slight confusion. For Li, it was because he didn't – or shouldn't – know what Contractors were. For Hei, it was the concept in itself. He'd never wondered that before. That the stars held representations of life. That the limited stars now in the sky presented life to only a few select people: the race of Contractors. Some had never wanted such power. After the sky had changed, it had rained for many days and nights with shooting stars as many took their own lives, before the disconnect occurred.

'It makes me feel not alive,' Kurosawa finished. 'That I don't have a star of my own.'

'You might,' Li offered. 'How can we know all the stars?'

Kurosawa scoffed. 'The old stars, maybe. The new stars look the same all around the world. And each one of them are numbered.'

That didn't sound to Hei that that bit of knowledge was something a bystander would have known. But he may have researched. Found himself desperate in the abstract idea: that cold phenomenon.

'That is a sad thought,' Li said, finally. 'And what is the difference between a Contractor and a human?'

**.**

He couldn't be surprised about the answer he received from Kurosawa. Only Contractors knew how Contractors were – if that. Hei didn't even know because he wasn't a true Contractor. He wasn't sure even they knew, because when he was a definite human he hadn't been too sure what that was. But Contractors being some sort of super-human was the accepted norm, to those who knew about Contractors.

But Hei knew that wasn't true. There was the remunerations. The way they'd all become puppets: to the Syndicate, to other dissonant groups, to the law-enforcing bodies – who were technically just another fraction of the Syndicate. Contractors couldn't even do things normal humans couldn't. The doppelganger proved that. Electricity that didn't need a contract. Electricity that came from technology. Death that came from technology.

There was no maliciousness behind it, just a desire to prove something, to someone – or not to anyone. Just to a God – if one of those things existed. It made startling sense now…except for one thing. The masks.

His mask shattered again that night and he reached for it. It didn't tear his skin this time. It just left lines of red.

Maybe he had come a little closer to discovering the answer, the explanation that dream was trying to give.

But then Bai took his hand and kissed it and he sat up with his heart thumping in his chest and thinking he'd only backslid.


	3. Chapter 3

**Defining Masks  
Chapter 3**

Humans dreamt. He wondered if those dreams were a reminder that he was a human, and not a Contractor. It might have made sense when that was undeniably true. When he'd first joined the Syndicate. When he'd first donned the mask of the Kuro no Shinigami. Before Bai had disappeared. Before he inherited her power, her job – and maybe even her fate. The only thing he didn't take from her was her remuneration. Sleep was his human need, not his contract's cost.

He had no remuneration. Sometimes, he wondered if feeling too human was his remuneration.

At other times, he wondered if he was still a human, despite having Contractor powers.

**.**

It took him a long time to realise it, but in his dreams, his mask was always stolen away from him. He'd assumed they were trying to take it off, trying to get him to look at himself – and he always did that. In the morning when he saved. Whenever he donned a disguise: Li Shungheng or something entirely else. Whenever he wore the mask of the Kuro no Shinigami – to make sure no alias peeked through. Whenever he was having an identity crisis and just needed to look at himself to reassure.

At some point though, he realised the mask was being taken away – stolen. And that might have had a different meaning entirely. Not to do with him at all, but the other person: the person stealing it away. It hadn't always been Bai. It wasn't always Bai, still. Or Amber. Or anyone he recognised.

He hadn't realised it until it was Kurosawa taking the mask from his face.

And then it clicked.

**.**

He saw Kurosawa more and more, but maybe that was because he was looking. Interested in mechanics – an odd elective for an arts student but an elective of choice nonetheless. Hei had gone for molecular physics on account of his own Contractor powers: an equally odd choice. For him, it was an opportunity to understand his power better.

Looking at Kurosawa fiddle with wires, he wondered why their understanding were so different. Was it simply because he didn't realise the electricity he summoned at his fingertips was more than current passing through wires? That it could change the molecular structure of things? Animate the unmoving? Change humans into dolls. Humans into contractors. Of course, the process was far more complex than that. He didn't know how, after all. Just that it was possible. Could he change others aside from humans, he wondered? Would it even matter if he could? He could change himself to a human and be rid of this conflict in his mind – but would it matter? Before he was a contractor, he was a part of the Syndicate? Becoming a human again wouldn't change that – and that was assuming he wasn't still a human, even now…

And the cat. A nod to Mao, of course. But why? Because the Kuro no Shinigami was often shadowed by a cat and the spectre of a white girl only contractors and other dolls could see?

Could he not understand because he _was_ a Contractor? Or because he wasn't human?

**.**

'The stars grow brighter every day,' Kurosawa mused, staring through the lens of Li's telescope. He'd come to bringing it out nightly again and it had become a little ritual. Neither of them were suspicious. Li had been looking for Kurosawa and Kurosawa had been the one to approach Li. 'But the rain is dreadful.'

'The rain carries a lot of things,' said Li. _Like electricity,_ Hei thought. It made it more unpredictable, more dangerous. But not his electricity. Perhaps it was wrong to call it that. It acted like electricity for the most part, but that was only because he hadn't tapped into its full potential – the potential Bai had wielded.

Only because he hadn't had a need to tap into that potential. The Syndicate didn't want it – and neither did he.

'All the forces of nature…' Kurosawa shut his eyes for a moment. 'The only ones alive are the ones who get to control them. How unfair is that?' His tone had turned low, angry. Li Shungsheng looked at him. Kurosawa relaxed. 'I'm sorry. That was…sudden.'

'Not too sudden,' Li mused, thinking of all the scants of conversation that had led to here. 'Would you want to be a Contractor?'

The question was out before he could consider its ramifications.

'It is possible?'

It sounded like Kurosawa was asking directly, but Li Shungsheng was a human alias and neither confirmed nor denied the possibility. He just shrugged. 'Hypothetical question.' Then added: 'I'm sorry if that was insensitive…'

'No.' Kurosawa shook his head, peering into the lens again. 'I grew up hearing about lives in the stars. Knowing there's no star that marks my life makes me feel not alive. And knowing that humans are evolving into something else makes me feel like one of the ones who'll vanish into time and be forgotten.'

Hei didn't point out that Contractors were, in a sense, already forgotten. Their old names were cast aside. Code names upon code names were piled up – but they had a star. And they had power. Maybe those two things were valuable after all.

'Why do you look at the sky, Li-kun?'

_Why do I look at the sky?_

Li Shungsheng stared. Hei stared. The Kuro no Shinigami stared. A good number of other aliases he'd forgotten also stared. And the real him, before the sky had changed.

'I don't know,' he said, finally. 'Now, I say it's because I miss the old sky. But I think I used to look at it, even then.'

He was almost sure. But memories had an odd way of playing tricks when you doubted them.

**.**

Yin had worked it out soon after him. Probably because of him. She'd taken it upon herself from some stage of their partnership to keep an eye on him, so she saw. But she didn't say anything. She didn't rush him. She even covered for him – something that still surprised Hei, even though he knew Yin had more freedom than most dolls.

What he didn't know was whether it had been because she had been closer to becoming a Contractor before she'd failed or because of how much he used his Contractor powers around her. Or whether it was something else entirely. Something he still didn't know.

But Yin gave him time. Covered for him. Allowed him to test the waters, so to speak. To find out the meaning behind that boy, his actions – and his own dreams.

Meanwhile, cats vanished. Turned up shocked. Healed and went back into the wild only to be caught again. They'd stopped dying. Whether it was because he found them quickly enough or because the electricity was weaker now – or maybe it was something else. His star wasn't shining though. He was sure. He wasn't the one doing something if indeed something was being done. His star did shine, but not then. Not around those times. It would be too suspicious if it did start shining then.

Maybe it was just another pointer that things weren't about the cats at all.

He'd long stopped thinking it was about the cat.

**.**

Mao kept his mouth shut for a while as well but eventually he spoke. He didn't understand. He was a Contractor through and through. Even if he was more cat than human now.

The case hadn't really bothered him. It should have, because black cats all over were being targeted. Maybe he'd realised it wasn't about the cats as well. Or maybe it was just a Contractor's way of doing things. If he wasn't in danger himself, it didn't matter. And he could always jump to another body if it came down to it. He'd paid the price for that already. Losing his own body.

Maybe it was that it shouldn't have bothered Hei.

But it did.

And it continued to do so.

'Did you make a friend?' Mao wondered, licking his paws.

He was more cat than human, sometimes.

'No,' Hei responded. 'Li Shungsheng made a friend. Not me.'

'Hmm…' said Mao, and he made no more comments that day.

But the next day he returned to the topic.

'I said so yesterday,' Hei replied, stirring in a spoon of sugar for his coffee.

'Why drink coffee?' Mao asked.

'Why drink milk?' Hei returned.

'Then the sugar? It sweetens the buds, nothing more.'

'It gives energy.' Hei drained the cup. 'And it takes away the bitterness of coffee.'

Their third day conversation takes an equally odd turn.

'Friends are a things only humans have. Contractors have comrades.' He licked a paw.

'I have no friends.' And it was an honest reply. 'For a long time, there's been no-one I can consider a friend.'

'Friends can be fleeting as well as everlasting,' Mao remarked. 'Did you consider that?'

No, Hei hadn't. And there was no reason to consider it as well.

**.**

The Syndicate was growing impatient. So was Huang. They met in the park, with a cigarette and the newspaper between them, hiding their interaction.

'What is taking so long?' the worn man asked. 'Surely you Contractors aren't that incompetent.'

Hei thought. 'Do you ever wish you were a Contractor?'

Huang spat out his cigarette. 'If I did,' he said finally, almost wistfully. 'I wouldn't be able to fall in love.'

Hei wasn't sure if he agreed with that. If other emotions could be felt, why not love as well?

What did love even feel like?

'Is it worth it?'

'Emotions over powers that tie a collar around your neck?' Huang drew out a new cigarette and lit it. 'Yeah, I think so.' He puffed. 'What's this got to do with your assignment?'

'Everything.' Hei stood up, tossed his newspaper into the disposal and wandered off.

He wondered what Huang was thinking about as he left.

**.**

The buzz about the copycat Contractor had died off a little. And either Hei was imagining it or Kurosawa seemed sad at that. They heard about it less and less. Less people warned Li Shungsheng about keeping a firm eye on his pet cat.

He could almost hear the wheels in Kurosawa's brain turning.

He was planning something big.

And Hei thought he could guess what it was.

'You'd better watch yourself,' he said to Mao, one night, draining a cup of coffee. He seemed to need them a little less now. Maybe the secret in his dream had been revealed. Or maybe he was too tired to see them through, to recall where they'd kissed his mind in the night, where they'd touched his skin. 'You'll be targeted soon.'

'I'll escape to another body.' Mao nibbled at his fish. 'And come back once the drama's over with.'

'You don't want to watch?' Hei raised an eyebrow. 'It won't be dangerous as a bird.'

'It'll be boring,' Mao said plainly. 'You don't seem to think it'll turn into a fight.'

And that was true. He didn't.

**.**

Mao, true to his word, disappeared into another body. And it was a bird, as Hei had guessed.

And, this time, the figure in the shadows didn't bother to run when Hei approached. He'd figured it out as well.

The Kuro no Shinigami wore his mask. The copycat wore his mask as well.

'Kurosawa.'

'Li-kun,' the man replied. 'Did you enjoy attempting to string me along?'

'Contractors don't experience such things,' Hei replied. 'No emotion. No ambition. We live only to survive.'

A wire came at him. He threw a knife. Deflected it. Cut it.

Mao had been right. There was no fight.

There was a conversation instead.

'What is the number of your star?' Kurosawa stepped out of the shadows and gave a bitter smirk. 'BK-201?'

The Kuro no Shinigami inclined his head, then reconsidered. 'That is my sister's number.'

'So you told the truth.' He let no eagerness slip in to his voice, but it was there, in his eyes. A spark. Why he'd twisted his hand. Why they were now face to face, wearing the same mask. 'It is possible to become a Contractor.'

'It is,' Hei agreed. 'But I don't recall ever wishing to be one.'

The other looked surprised, before the stoic expression replaced his face again. 'Of course,' he muttered, 'the alive are never grateful, are they?'

'Grateful?' Hei repeated musingly. 'No, I suppose not.'

He wondered when the dam would break. They were fingering its waters all too carelessly.

'Is it a case of the grass being greener on the other side, I wonder?' He sat on the world. Kurosawa considered him, then sat as well.

'Perhaps,' Kurosawa allowed. 'I don't understand you.'

'Neither do I,' replied Hei, behind the mask. 'I am a Contractor but I was made one, not born. I have a star, but it belonged to somebody else before me. As do my powers. I am an imitation – and beyond that I am a puppet. A weapon who will be tossed aside when my usefulness ends. My real self: my name and all else aside, has been forgotten.'

'Even you?' Kurosawa wondered.

'Even me. I have been Li Shungsheng for almost two years and the Kuro no Shinigami for almost nine, but the me from before that has long since become a part of history.' He smiled wryly. Kurosawa couldn't see, and for Hei's own part, he didn't know why. But it seemed appropriate. 'Do you think a name is important?'

'Maybe.' He sounded doubtful. But the stars glittered above them. Stars that mocked. 'So a human wishes to be alive and a Contractor squanders theirs.' Still bitter, but there was a hint of wonder in his tone.

'The grass is greener on the other side,' Hei repeated.

'Perhaps,' Kurosawa said again. 'But can you say you want to be human?'

Hei could not.

'So, what now?'

**.**

That was the question, in the end. What happened next. Both of them had known. Both of them had seen it coming. But one had a wish and the other a job. And if it came down to a fight, there was no doubt in either's mind who the winner would be.

'Will you kill me?' His lips twitched into a smile. 'I'm sure few at uni would believe this.'

'It is easy enough to fake emotions.' The Kuro no Shinigami jumped smoothly off the wall.

'It is also easy to pretend you don't care,' the other replied. 'Is it true, I wonder. Do Contractors really not feel emotion?'

'Are you asking if I will be sad after I've killed you? Or guilty?'

It was almost amusing. The fake acted more the emotionless part than the real one.

But he'd always known he wasn't a real Contractor.

Maybe his dreams were telling him he was the fake.

'Do you want to be a Contractor?'

'Which question should I answer first?' He jumped off the world as well. 'You can't fake well what you don't know in the face of one who does. Am I wrong?'

He wasn't wrong.

'As for becoming a Contractor still…' He looked at his hand, then offered it. Wires stuck out from his coat. They both ignored them. 'Take this hand and shock me, or turn me.'

'Am I a Messiah, now?' Hei asked.

He took the hand.

It was his decision to make.

He wasn't even sure if he could.

But, for some reason, he wanted to try.

**.**

The crow followed him home. Hei left the door open so it could come in, then closed it. 'Mao,' he said.

Mao had chosen the form of a crow after all. One would almost suspect he had a fondness for black.

But Contractors were fond of nothing.

'What have you done?' Mao squawked.

Hei allowed a small grin to grace his face. 'You said it would be boring without a fight. You were wrong.'

**.**

Choice was a very funny thing. Kurosawa decided he wanted to become a Contractor and he became one. Swept into the Syndicate because they couldn't afford a rogue Contractor running around. And Hei earned himself a slap on the wrist before continuing his usual work. Menial. Things they could have gotten ordinary police to do. But he was the slave of the system and so he worked.

He wondered if he had wished it at some point, to become a Contractor. To have power: the power to protect Bai, to do something else. Maybe he'd wanted the power. Maybe that was why he'd had it.

He'd wanted Bai to die once upon a time and he'd gotten that wish granted, hadn't he?

She appeared with his mask that night as well. Taking it off. Shattering it. Making his face bleed. He stared impassively back at her. 'Is this your punishment?' he asked. He was tired. His mind and his body needed sleep. Deep sleep. 'Is this your way of asking for my honesty?'

It was suddenly Amber there. Amber picking up the fragments of his mask. 'Did you know?' she asked. 'Those who say Contractors have no emotions only lie. It is only simpler to pretend.'

He'd heard this argument from her before, of course, but nobody else believed it.

Or so he'd thought.

**.**

His next job was relatively simple. A young woman whose remuneration was to age until she could age no more. They met on her death bed. She repeated Amber's words to her. Kurosawa's question. The question Mao asked him all too often in their cosy little apartment under the watchful eye of the Syndicate and the world. In different guises. With the same meaning.

Did Contractors have emotions after all? Was he a true Contractor? Or a human? Or was the choice his to make after all?

Once upon a time, it hadn't been important to know.

But the time was rapidly approaching for him to decide, to know.

He hadn't realised it, but Kurosawa was just a stepping stone to the tale.

When Amber, in body, reappeared, Hei all but forgot this tale.

**.**

One day, the nightmares did disappear. With Hell's Gate. But new nightmares took their place. The feeling of being hunted, step by step. The feeling of a noose slowly tightening around his neck.

But he could sleep soundly still. The mystery had been solved. The choice made. Like one who'd had the fortune of making a choice and had seen it fulfilled, so had Hei. He'd chosen this path of his, this path without a name. He was neither Contractor nor human but both: somewhere in between. And with a doll in his arms he walked, his noose cast as far away from his neck as possible.

There was no mask anymore. Alias, yes, but no mask. Just one. Who could perhaps become the new skin he wore.

But the new nightmares were not to be taken lightly, nor ignored.

They too carried a message and a plea in their depths.


End file.
